


Pacific Rim - Iron Winter

by monobuu



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Background Relationships, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Getting Together, Giant Robots, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, I mean come on he's not really dead, Idiots in Love, Kaiju, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Temporary Character Death, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, hand-wavy science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-04-16 21:46:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14174064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monobuu/pseuds/monobuu
Summary: After being dropped from Pilot Academy, disowned by his father, and almost killed by his godfather, Tony Stark has made himself a relatively not-depressing life in the middle of the biggest expanse of nothingness he could find. Namely: Canada. He has his shop, he has his bots, and he has his own jaeger: built from scratch himself and almost ready to be deployed if he could just get his newest AI to integrate.Oh, and now he also has a one-armed amnesiac with PTSD sleeping on his couch.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story will only reference solving the kaiju problem in passing. It's more about the pilots, their jaegers, and coordinating a cohesive defense system.

-BUCKY-

Nomad Soldier had been deployed to take care of a category II kaiju with the codename Onibaba, and Steve had been just as enthusiastic about jumping into their jaeger as he always was, even though it had been the ass end of dawn when the alarm had gone off. Technically they were the ones on call during those hours, so Bucky couldn’t complain, but that didn’t mean he had to be as chipper as his twin brother was when Fury had marched into their bunk to ask why they hadn’t suited up already. Steve, ever the good soldier (when it suited him), had responded with a chipper, “On it, sir!”

Bucky’s response had been slightly less civil and had relied heavily on the use of one of his fingers in particular.

“This guy doesn’t even deserve to be called a kaiju,” Bucky said easily as Nomad’s double-edged sword cleaved through one of the hind legs of Onibaba. The ocean’s water swirled around the jaeger’s legs in much the same way bathwater had swirled around Bucky’s own when he was a boy, and the sheer size of the jaegers nowadays never ceased to amaze him.

They’d already hit the kaiju twice with their plasma gun, and the monster was slowing down considerably according to the stats displayed on the left side of the holo screen that stretched in front of them. The battle hadn’t lasted more than 15 minutes, with the kaiju easily falling prey to their unorthodox way of fighting - born out of back alley brawls where they’d been outnumbered two to one by boys twice their size. They’d both been fighting for years before the first kaiju had even appeared, and it hadn’t taken much thought to transition from fighting bullies on the playground to fighting slobbering, fifty-story tall monsters who made Godzilla look like somebody’s pet bunny.

They’d gone from being Brooklyn’s Most Likely To Go Medieval On Your Ass to the entire country’s pride and joy in a little over a month, all because they’d cut their teeth on cocksure assclowns who thought picking on that little guy with the asthma and the gay hair was a good idea. 

And Bucky didn’t even need the Drift to know that Steve had found his purpose in life through piloting Nomad Soldier in this war. They were so compatible as to be laughable, their memories so similar that it was nigh impossible to disrupt their connection to one another. He could feel every thought in Steve’s head, every emotion, because he was  _ in _ Steve’s head, right there with him on the front lines of this fucked up war. 

_ Til the end of the line, Stevie. _

_ Til the end of the line. _

And Steve’s utter ecstasy at destroying these fuckers was every bit as manic as Bucky’s own. Every single time they went out. It was a rush like he’d never known, and he lived for it.

“Girl,” Steve said with a grin. “You idiot.”

“What?” Bucky responded, reaching down with the jaeger’s left hand to grab onto the kaiju’s tail. Steve had the sword deployed on the right, and when Bucky heaved, Steve was right there with him, body in complete sync with Bucky’s own despite their differences in dominant hands.

“Onibaba,” Steve clarified as they both swung the kaiju into the air with all the power Nomad had in his hydraulics, casting it into the sky as they casually changed their footing in anticipation of Onibaba’s fall back to earth. “Baba means grandmother, didn’t you pay attention in school?”

Bucky scoffed, bringing Nomad’s left hand out and around to balance as they lowered the sword enough that the tip was submerged in the ocean.

“Nobody paid attention in school, Steve, certainly not-” they both heaved, planting their left foot and swinging the sword up in a vicious arc as the kaiju fell towards them. The sword sliced clean through the kaiju’s head and continued on, splitting it almost perfectly in half down its entire body.

“-you,” Bucky finished as the two parts of the defeated kaiju fell into the water and sunk to the bottom. They both relaxed, eyes scanning the HUD in case the kaiju had managed to survive being cut in two.

“Excuse you, I got straight A’s,” Steve said, sliding his fingers across the display to sheath Nomad’s sword. “I wasn’t the one off chasing skirts and dick every day.”

Steve pressed the button on the side of his helmet to activate the communication line between them and the base. Normally it was protocol to keep it on at all times, but they’d been harangued about their banter on so many occasions that when it came to category Is and IIs, they just muted their end altogether to avoid getting their asses chewed. And they hadn’t yet managed to get in trouble for it yet, ironically.

“Target eliminated,” Steve reported. “Minimal damage sustained, on our way back.”

“Excuse  _ you _ ,” Bucky retorted once Steve had muted their side again, turning to give his brother a half-hearted glare. “Rhonda Lee’s legs were well worth chasing, and you know it.”

“ _ Excellent, Nomad. Radar is clear, no more targets.” _

“Yeah?” Steve asked, throwing him a smirk. “And what about Jeremy Boone?”

Bucky tried real hard to quell his blush, because Steve knew damn well why Bucky had gone after Jeremy Boone in seventh grade, and it’d had nothing to do with tutoring like he’d told their dad, and everything to do with how perfect his backside had been. Back then he’d been too embarrassed to admit that he liked batting for both teams, but now he was more comfortable in his own skin and had no problem telling Steve exactly where he could shove his comments.

It’s just, his cheeks hadn’t gotten the memo, dammit.

“Do not make me bring up Peggy Carter,” Bucky threatened as they turned to head back toward the base.

“ _ Nomad, wait. Signature risin– might be another category II.” _

They halted where they were, eyes flicking to the screen as they turned, argument still ongoing. “You wouldn’t dare,” Steve said, eyes narrowing.

“You’re right,” Bucky said with mock humility. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

Steve nodded, eyeing Bucky warily as they both turned back to scan their surroundings.

“I’ll wait until dinner tonight so everyone can hear the story,” Bucky said casually, fierce grin on his face.

“Bucky!” Steve shouted, whining complaint clear in his tone, but Bucky didn’t get to hear how Steve had decided to chastise him this time, because base command had been right, and there was another kaiju beneath the waves.

“ _ Level III. I repeat, it’s a level III!” _

Steve motioned with his hand and Nomad’s sword came out again, waiting for their own radar to pick up on the new kaiju. They’d fought III’s before, they could handle it, they just needed the signature to show up on the radar so they could aim and coordinate their first attack.

It took them by surprise, bursting from the water almost directly beneath them without popping up on their radar once. Not knowing how close the beast had been meant they weren’t prepared for close-quarter combat, and when the kaiju reared up, teeth flashing to their left, it was all they could do to try and dodge. They stepped backward with their left foot, swinging the left arm out of the way of those jaws, but they weren’t fast enough, and teeth clamped down hard on metal, the screaming noise of rending gears like nails on a chalkboard to Bucky’s ears.

Pain ignited down his left arm, the neural connections between their own brains and the jaeger’s body allowing them to not only move the limb, but feel it being torn apart. Bucky clenched his teeth against the pain as he heard Steve grunt, using all his strength to try and wrench the limb free from the kaiju.

“ _ Nomad! It’s got some sort of reflecting ability – it’s inconsistent on radar!” _

“No shit,” Bucky growled, jaw tight with pain. His eyes stayed glued to the HUD as he watched the kaiju move, planting its massive talons on Nomad’s side to use as leverage as it pulled.

“Charge your plasma cannon,” Steve gritted out, “Sword can’t reach!”

Bucky tried, but the cannon would only charge to 20%, which was maybe enough to maybe tickle a category III and not much else. “Must’ve caught the main power line, the cannon won’t charge!”

“ _ Nomad! Report!” _

Steve jabbed at the button on his helmet viciously. “He’s got our arm, sir! Give us a second to shake him free!”

Bucky didn’t think they were going to shake anything free, not with the grip this bastard had on his arm. He twisted, trying to see if he could loosen the teeth just enough for them to slide off the main power line for his cannon. A jaeger’s innards weren’t made out of glass, the line was likely just pinched between the kaiju’s teeth enough to cut off enough power that he couldn’t blast the thing. Less of a strategic move and more dumb luck on the kaiju’s part – but still effective.

“Fucking- Dammit!” Bucky growled, and they both shifted the weight of Nomad’s stance as they heard creaking and tearing.

Steve turned, bringing Nomad’s right hand up and around to grab at the kaiju’s head, fingers squeezing as tight as they could in an effort to make the thing let go. The kaiju scrabbled against their side, claws still planted, and used his leverage to push himself up further, bucking against Steve’s hold. The kaiju released their arm only to aim for their shoulder, and before Steve could pull him away with his grip on the head, the kaiju’s teeth sunk in again, this time right at the joint.

It was close enough to the piloting pod that Bucky could  _ see _ three of the kaiju’s teeth from where he stood.

“Shit!” Steve shouted. “Compromised! Send backup!  _ Now! _ ”

Bucky knew it was too late though. He could hear the metal parting at the joint, weaker there than it was at the bicep, where the kaiju had first latched on. He could  _ feel _ the shoulder rending away from the body of their jaeger, and with the kaiju’s proximity to their pod, they would soon be facing not only a category III kaiju with one arm and no backup, but the added danger of an open cockpit while fighting in the middle of the Pacific. One wrong move and the frailty of the human body would be their downfall - whether or not Nomad was still capable of defending the base would be a moot point if both his pilots were drowning.

Bucky felt the joint finally give and as the metal screeched as the kaiju ripped part of their cockpit apart, Bucky turned to look at his brother. Debris was flying everywhere and their HUD was flickering, tubing and wires falling from where they’d become disconnected after the left wall of their pod disappeared.

“Bucky!” Steve shouted, terror etched in every line of his face. “Escape pod, now!”

Bucky shook his head. He was no better out there in an escape pod than he was in here. The kaiju could easily see the pod launch, could grab him right out of the air if he wanted, and that would be it – with no weapons on the pod to use in his defense, Bucky would be eaten. Or worse. Besides, Steve couldn’t pilot Nomad on his own. Bucky would stay for as long as he was able, would die before he let Steve experience the neural overload again.

“ _ Haunted Edge inbound. T-minus three minutes – hold on, Nomad!” _

Too long. Three minutes was too long. They wouldn’t get there in time.

In the background, he vaguely recognized the sound of Nomad’s severed arm hitting the ocean waves, the crash of metal on water. Bucky watched Steve’s terror turn angry, turn determined and stubborn and as the kaiju reared up again, aiming for the hole he’d already made in Nomad’s defenses, they both bent their knees to take Nomad lower, attempting to dodge the kaiju’s lunge.

It almost worked.

The kaiju’s jaws missed entirely, but his claws did not. They snagged on the open hole in the cockpit, severed Bucky’s connection from the jaeger entirely as they dragged him out of his rig and slammed him into the back wall of the pod, pinning him between metal and slimy kaiju scales. The only thing keeping him from being crushed was the armored plating on his flight suit and the metal bracketing down his spine. His helmet was cracked, but he could still see Steve, bent over double from the severed drift but turned his way, horror written in his eyes. Bucky’s own pain from the abrupt disconnect was almost overwhelming darkening his vision almost to the point of blindness. His chest was being crushed and his left arm was entirely numb on top of the screaming pain in his head. But he met Steve’s gaze and made sure he held it.

“I love you,” he told his brother, his twin, his partner in crime. “Till the end of the-”

And then the peak of the kaiju’s lunge ended and gravity took hold, dragging the talons out of Nomad’s cockpit and jerking Bucky with it, out into the open air and down, down, down.

“ _ BUCKY! _ ”

Everything went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not beta'd. All mistakes are my own.

Tony Stark was in good spirits. Fresh off a scavenging trip down to Nanaimo, the back of his truck, the entire trailer, and almost the entirety of his backseat were filled with finds he’d thought for sure he’d have to order through that asshole Rumlow. They were all likely from a freshly decommissioned jaeger, and the best of those parts were usually given to traders who’d greased certain palms in order to get first choice - that was how Rumlow did his trading. Without his family’s bankroll behind him, Tony couldn’t afford to make those types of deals.

He had truly gotten lucky finding them in the general scavengers’ market - and he didn’t feel too guilty about taking them off the hands of a guy who probably didn’t realize what he had in the first place. With the haul he made today, he might just be able to finish Iron Echo.

He’d even managed to snag the last strawberry hand pie from his favorite stall before heading out to make the trip home.

“Best day ever,” Tony mumbled to himself, one hand on the wheel while the other scratched at the beard growth on his chin. He hated growing it out, but it helped disguise his face when he went into the bigger cities and he could never be too careful where Stane was concerned. The backstabbing son of a bitch likely still had men out looking for him, even seven years after Tony had left New York. The man’s greed knew no bounds.

Tony shook his head, clearing his mind of those thoughts. He hated dwelling on the past, especially on such a good day, and he refused to let it ruin his good mood. All he had to worry about right now was his truck and the open road in front of him.

Except, as Tony gazed out the window, enjoying the sight of waves rushing against the frozen beach, his eye caught on what looked like a giant piece of metal sticking up from the sand and rock. Giant pieces of metal only meant one thing these days and Tony weighed the pros and cons of going to look around and see if there was anything salvageable. Something big enough to be seen from the road wouldn’t go undiscovered for long, and chances were that it had already been picked clean.

But considering his luck today, Tony decided he could take an hour to have a look around, see if there was anything he could use.

After he’d pulled his vehicle to the side and double checked that everything was locked and secured, he headed in the direction of the metal eyesore. As he neared, he could tell that it had been torn off of whatever it had been previously connected too. If it had been taken apart by hand, it wouldn’t have the jagged edges up the right side like it did, and the few intact pieces of internal wiring and tubing he could see from afar were rough-edged as well. 

“Definitely from a jaeger,” he said to himself as he got up close enough to run his hand over the side of it. There had been a small chance it was from a shipwreck, but the angles of the piece didn’t match up with any type of ship piece he could remember seeing.

Once up close, though, he was certain.

“Probably from a joint,” he mused, walking around the jagged edge to see which of the internal parts, if any, had managed to stay with the metal piece. 

“Neck?” he asked himself, checking the wiring that was within reach. “No, the angling is too sharp, probably a shoulder or an elbow joint.”

Much to his disappointment, the piece didn’t seem to have much left in way of usable parts. The wiring was almost entirely ripped out and what was left was mangled beyond repair. Metal littered the beach, small parts or pieces that had been torn by the rocks, nothing of use to Tony, who’s jaeger was mostly built already and only missing very specific, key components he was having trouble creating on his own.

He stepped over a mangled bit of tubing and insulation and came to a stop when he found the last thing he’d expected to find next to a torn up piece of jaeger.

A dead body.

Tony had seen dead bodies before. His family’s company specialized in war and weaponry and, after the initial kaiju attack, jaeger tech. Hell, he’d killed two of Stane’s hitmen himself at age 17. Dead bodies didn’t quite disturb him the way it might others, but when one came up on him unexpectedly, well.

“Holy shit!” he shouted, jumping back a step as his hand went to his heart. He took a few breaths and tried to calm himself before he took a step closer.

The man was wearing the remains of a pilot suit, which was unsurprising considering where he was laying. His helmet was gone, as was the entirety of the armored casing that usually went over the suit, but the cloth beneath it had held up surprisingly well. The left sleeve was gone up to the elbow, as was part of the neck and chest, but the rest of the body remained covered. 

Tony crept closer, not entirely sure why but somehow unable to just leave the dead guy alone. There wasn’t anything Tony could do, and he certainly wasn’t going to rifle through the man’s pockets-

“Do flight suits have pockets?” he asked himself as he bent into a squat. “What the fuck am I doing?”

Discovering, evidently, that the man  _ wasn’t _ dead.

“Holy  _ shit _ ,” Tony said, letting his knees fall to the ground as his eyes stayed glued to the minute rise and fall of the previously assumed  _ dead guy’s _ chest. Tony’s hands flailed a bit as his mind rushed through the options at hand. “Shit, shit, shit,  _ shit. _ ”

Option one, he could definitely just leave the guy there, head back to his truck and act like nothing had ever happened. There was nothing for him to scavenge here, and the longer his truck sat unattended on the road, the more he risked somebody coming by, recognizing what he had, and stealing it.

Tony liked to think he wasn’t that much of a dick, though.

Option two involved hauling the man back to his truck, hoping he managed to survive the two hours of driving Tony had left, and praying that the one doctor in the village Tony sort of called home could help the guy.

Tony let out a frustrated huff and rolled up his sleeves.

-d-b-

“Mr. Stark, when I made you that list of supplies I needed from the city, I don’t remember putting ‘corpse’ anywhere on it.”

Tony glared half heartedly at Ho Yinsen as the doctor pushed up his glasses in a way that said  _ I’m not joking, why did you bring me a dead guy? _ The not-dead guy had kept breathing  _ (rapid but not concerning, as far as Tony’s unprofessional opinion went) _ all throughout the rest of the journey, slumped to the side in the passenger seat and only moving when a bump in the road jostled him into sliding a bit further down. 

Considering the man didn’t seem to be getting any worse, and the fact that Tony was loath to just leave his scavenged treasures just lying around in town while he waited to speak with Yinsen, he’d taken his haul home first. The bots had emptied his truck in a matter of minutes and unhooked his trailer so they could roll it inside the large hangar doors attached to his shop. With that taken care of, he’d headed back into town, dragging the man into Yinsen’s clinic as gently as he could.

The clinic was small, like everything else in this town, but Yinsen kept it clean and as neat as he could, considering. There was a small waiting area with mismatched chairs, what passed as a front desk with an actual computer that Tony himself kept running for him, and the back area was split into two rooms, what Yinsen liked to call his surgical suite, and an office.

Tony had made it to the waiting room before the secretary, Yinsen’s daughter, went running for her father. With his help, they managed to get their mysterious new patient onto an exam table in the surgical suite.

“I know you’re not  _ that _ bad at your job, doc,” Tony said. “Even I know that breathing means life.”

Yinsen was already bent over the man, pulling back eyelids and checking his pulse. “What quality of life that is, however, remains to be seen,” he said softly, his accented voice giving it a calming quality that Tony had always appreciated when he came in with welding burns, cuts, and the occasional piece of metal stuck in one of his extremities. 

“He’s breathing, yes,” Yinsen clarified when Tony said nothing. “Enlarged pupils, rapid pulse to match his breathing, cool to the touch. If I had to guess, I’d say shock, and it was severe enough that he’s remained unconscious.”

Yinsen ran his hands over the man’s chest and down the side of his ribs, checking for something, though Tony didn’t know what. None of his Ph.D.s were in the medical fields. Yinsen paused when he got to the man’s waist, but instead of inspecting what Tony thought might be a broken rib, his hands went to the man’s left arm. He lifted the extremity at the elbow, bringing his other hand down to inspect where part of the undersuit had been torn off. Tony hadn’t noticed before, but the man’s skin was more of a dusky color at his fingers than anywhere else. The very tips were even darker.

“That’s not good, is it,” Tony said, his tone making it a statement instead of a question. Black meant necrosis, and necrosis never ended well.

“No,” Yinsen answered distractedly, turning briefly to grab a scissors before he began carefully cutting the rest of the sleeve away. 

Once the whole arm was visible, Tony could see necrosis was only part of the problem. He couldn’t quite keep the grimace off his face.

“His elbow is shattered,” Yinsen said, and Tony thought he was being generous with that description. The elbow was  _ pulp _ . “And the shoulder is dislocated entirely,” Yinsen continued as he gently ran his hand up the man’s arm, feeling for more injuries than the visibly obvious ones.

Tony recognized the raised marks that ran the entire length of the man’s arm in a pattern one might expect on a circuit board, but all it did was cement the fact that the man had been a jaeger pilot. It meant a great deal of stress had been put on both the jaeger and the pilot in that specific area, and considering the state of his arm, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, so Tony kept quiet. Yinsen was familiar with jaeger injuries, and he wasn’t stupid by any means. 

“My guess is the blood flow was cut off at the shoulder, not entirely, but combined with the shock of whatever trauma he went through, it was enough to all but kill the hand by the time you discovered him,” Yinsen explained. He pushed his glasses up a bit, rubbed at the bridge of his nose, then let the fall back down, adjusting them as he looked up at Tony for the first time since he’d brought the man in.

“So what can you do?” Tony asked, opting to get straight to the prognosis. No point in going through all the medical jargon explaining the hows and the whys - all Tony needed to know what whether or not the man could be saved.

“Normally,” Yinsen started, before letting out a quick sigh. “Normally, I’d say cut the hand off. It can’t be saved, the necrosis has advanced too far. If he were in a bigger city, like Vancouver, with actual hospitals that have the staff, the supplies and the money for advanced surgical procedures, along with a dedicated rehabilitation program, they might be able to save the elbow.”

“But we’re not in Vancouver,” Tony said.

Yinsen shook his head. “We’re not. My clinic does not have the means to do such a procedure, nor will Nanaimo, in my estimation.”

“And we can’t go to Vancouver,” Tony sighed. Well. Tony couldn’t. It was too big of a city, he didn’t trust that he wouldn’t be recognized, and nobody else even knew about this guy, let alone felt any sort of responsibility for his health. 

“I can reset the shoulder, then amputate just below it,” Yinsen said directly, succinctly. “It will give him the best chance for survival.”

“Will he wake up?” Tony asked. 

Yinsen looked back down, studying his patient. “That I cannot tell you. If he was strong enough to survive this long, and through a traumatic accident that had him washing up on a beach in Canada?” Yinsen asked, looking at Tony. “My guess would be yes.”

Tony nodded. “Good. Do it. I’ll pay you whatever you need, cash or trade.”

Yinsen nodded. “I will start to prep him for surgery, please tell Toni to contact  Sasha and Aleksis, I will need their assistance.”

Tony thought about it for a moment. He didn’t know this guy, didn’t owe him anything or feel anything towards him, but he knew for a fact that if it was  _ his _ arm, he’d want people to try as hard as they could to save it. That being said, Tony was also a pragmatist, and there was no point in losing a life trying to save that life’s arm. He didn’t feel comfortable at all making this type of decision for a stranger, especially when all his intelligence was focused in areas outside of biology and medicine. But Yinsen was just as smart as Tony was, and if he said this was the best choice, Tony would just have to believe him and take his chances when the guy finally woke up.

_ If _ the guy woke up.

“I’ll just have to make him a new one,” Tony muttered to himself.

Yinsen blinked. “Pardon?”

Tony shook himself out of his thoughts, directing his attention toward Yinsen. “Take away whatever can’t be salvaged, and install a basic docking port to the shoulder and what’s left.”

“We don’t have prosthetic capabilities here, Tony,” Yinsen argued. “I don’t have even the most basic of components I’d need to put together and install a docking port, let alone an entire arm.”

“You don’t have anything?” Tony asked, frowning. “Not even a simple SI-90?”

Yinsen shook his head.

“Okay, okay,” Tony mumbled. “I can whip something up, I designed half the shit that went into them, it shouldn’t be too hard to put it all together into something that works – the power source was a huge issue when they first came out, though, I’ll have to-”

“Tony,” Yinsen said loudly, and Tony looked up.

“Right. Do your thing with the squishy bits and I’ll have something for you to install by the time you’re finished.”

Yinsen gave him a skeptical look, but nodded nonetheless, pulling and pushing carts and items out of the way as he began setting up his operating room. He called for his daughter as Tony gave the stranger one last look before leaving the clinic altogether.

He’d make up for deciding to cut the man’s arm off by giving him the best prosthetic on the entire planet. He wouldn’t be able to stay mad at Tony when he was sporting the coolest piece of cyborg tech ever made by a Stark.

-d-b-

It took a week and two days for the stranger to wake up, and by then he wasn’t as much of a stranger thanks to the fact that his identity chip had survived whatever hellscape he’d crawled through to end up on a frozen Alaskan beach. Tony had dug through the half-destroyed flight suit when he’d come back with the impromptu docking port and the ID chip had been safely tucked into the port near the collar, just to the side of where the  neural connectors would attach down the spinal cord.  Jarvis had been able to read it easily, and now they at least had a name, rank, and serial number for the man.

James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant in the Pan Pacific Defense Corps - 32557038. 

Tony had been slightly worried when the surgery had been completed and James was still non-responsive after a week. Yinsen assured him he’d done everything within his meager clinic’s abilities to bring the man back to health and thankfully two days later, whatever had been keeping James in the land of the half-dead faded entirely and he woke up.

And when James finally opened his eyes, it was a shit show.

Though his shoulder had healed considerably and was taking to the docking port as well as could be expected in the week it had had to heal thus far, the shoulder was still in a delicate state. So when James came to consciousness screaming in terror and swinging the one remaining arm he possessed, the team had immediately scrambled for sedatives. Tony had been visiting the clinic at least once a day for updates and had managed a front row seat when it happened, ducking as tools went flying and rolling cabinets went tumbling as Yinsen and his daughter struggled to administer the drugs. After half a minute of flailing and struggling, Tony had seen an opening, snatched the syringe from Yinsen’s hand and swung low to catch James in the back of his good shoulder.

The drugs worked near instantly and within seconds James was dead weight in their arms.

“Did you catch anything he was yelling about?” Tony asked as all three of them lowered him to the cot and rearranged him into some sort of comfortable position.

“Gibberish,” Toni said. “Nothing intelligible outside ‘no’ and ‘don’t’ as far as I could tell.”

“I heard ‘Steve,’” Yinsen said, wiping his forehead idly as he eyed his patient.

“Well, maybe Steve is one of the good guys. Let’s hope the next time he wakes up, it’s not directly after a nightmare, eh?” Tony said, giving them a smile.

The next time was better, but not by much. Luckily, they’d learned from the first incident and strapped James to the bed with soft cuffs.

“You’re in the hospital,” Tony said firmly, trying to catch James’s eyes as they darted around the room frantically. Tony held his arm down on the bed, trying to reduce the strain on the cuff in case James’s impressive amount of muscle rendered them a useless precaution. Toni was on his other side to make sure his attempts at freedom didn’t do any more harm to his injured shoulder and Yinsen was standing by with another syringe of sedative, just in case.

“Where?!” James asked, tone halfway between anger and fear.

“Alaska,” Tony said. “I pulled you out of the Bering Sea half dead, and you’re still not entirely healed, so settle down!”

“Who are you!?” James shouted. “I don’t-”

His gaze was still frantic, still jumping from place to place, face to face, unable to settle on anything. “I don’t- I can’t remember-”

“My name is Toni,” Toni said in a gentle coaxing tone. “And this guy’s name is Tony too, unfortunately.”

Tony gave Toni a quick, exasperated look. It had been a point of joking contention between them ever since Yinsen had welcomed Tony into town.

“This is my father, Doctor Yinsen,” Toni continued, gesturing to her father. “What’s your name?”

They already knew his name, technically, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask and make sure the guy hadn’t cracked his head hard enough to forget himself.

“I don’t-” James said haltingly, looking at where Tony held down his right arm, then up at Tony himself. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Yinsen echoed, taking a step closer. He set the syringe with the sedative aside, coming in beside his daughter to look into James’s eyes more closely. “Age? Birthday?”

“I don’t know,” James said, despair creeping into his tone. He kept darting his eyes at Tony, as if Tony had all the answers. He did, to be fair, but James didn’t  _ know _ that Tony knew.

“Current President?” Toni asked, and James shook his head. “What’s the last thing you  _ do _ remember?”

James sat silently, though his eyes held a frightening amount of realization the longer he seemed to think about it. His breathing, which had slowed minutely in the past few minutes, started picking up again. He squeezed his eyes shut, only to open them again, wide and pleading and looking directly at Tony. “I don’t- I don’t remember anything.”

“It’s okay. We’re here to help, sir,” Toni assured, placing a tentative hand on the metal plating that made up James’s shoulder port. “You’re safe.”

James had settled somewhat, but he was still thrumming with tension in every limb. His eyes darted to his left side when Toni spoke, fixating on where she was touching him and widening just a bit before closing all together. His breathing was ragged and Tony didn’t envy him one bit as one more realization hit him like a ton of bricks.

“My arm-” he tried, voice getting caught in his throat. “What-”

“We had to,” Tony said, holding up a hand to Yinsen before he could answer. James didn’t need a bunch of medical jargon, just the basic facts. “It was a miracle you survived the cold, but your arm was damaged enough that there was no way to fix it.”

“But it’s…” James said, voice suddenly lacking any emotion at all.

Tony tried for a tone similar to Toni’s, caring and soft and as sympathetic as he could. “If we hadn’t taken it, it would have killed you.”

“Sh’d’ve,” James muttered, turning to Tony once more as his voice slurred slightly. He slumped back in the bed and his eyes shut seemingly without his permission, the tension leaving his body as exhaustion took him.

“What did he say?” Toni asked, looking across at Tony.

Tony frowned as he watched James. His body was still healing not only his shoulder but all of the damage the rest of his body had taken in whatever accident had thrown his ass into the Bering Sea. His waking moments would be short, few and far between in the coming weeks, but at least they’d managed to calm him down enough this time to explain where he was. The next thing they’d need to worry about was his recovery, which absolutely did not need to take place in a dinky hospital room. Besides, Yinsen would need it for his other patients eventually.

“How soon before he can leave?” Tony asked.

“Considering his shoulder is taking well to the port, I’d say as soon as he can stay awake for longer than an hour, so maybe a day or two before-”

“You’re just gonna kick him out onto the streets as soon as he can stand up?” Toni asked, scowl firmly in place. “With no memory and no money?”

“Of course not,” Tony scoffed, flapping a hand in her direction. “He’ll be staying with me until I finish his arm. Then...”

Tony looked up at Yinsen.

“Then, who knows.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, this author is a super slow writer, I hope the next chapter comes out sooner than this one did! 
> 
> Me too, pal.


End file.
